Schoolboy transfers - my tuppence worth

Egerton Chang, Contributor

I can't recall my high school having any Rhodes Scholar or anyone that rose to those levels, while I attended there for seven years. What I know with absolute certainty was that we were not Manning Cup, Walker Cup and, of course, daCosta Cup champions for any of the years. Nor were we swimming, table tennis or ISSA Boys' Champs title holders, for that matter.

Oh, how I yearned for my school being first in anything scholastic or otherwise. We were all told about so and so who was a Jamaica or Rhodes Scholar before, or the great Manning Cup and daCosta Cup champions a few years past. Of all the great, indeed legendary, football players of the past, including those of recent vintage. But never when I was there. Or so it appeared to me.

You see, I attended St George's College from January 1962 to June 1968. Up to then, we had been Manning Cup Champions a total of 15 times.

I remember when Frank Parham (recently deceased) came to St George's in second or third form from Belize and immediately started playing on the Manning Cup team. He scored about three goals in his first match and something like five goals in his first two matches. He was like a godsend. He was instantly idolised. Alas, it was like a flash in the pan, for however good he was, he did not continue to live up to those heights. Nor did we win any cup.

TRANSFEREES

I wonder whether he was a transferee, having gone straight on to the Manning Cup team? Come to think about it, I was also a transferee, having received a scholarship to Wolmer's Boys School, but demanded to go to St George's, following in the footsteps of my previous three brothers. (Eventually, six of us were to attend that school). Unfortunately, I was not good scholastically and avoided anything athletic, including PE.

Institutions, as well as individuals, yearn for something to be proud of. To be fair, we did win a few lawn tennis titles, and I recall Lipton Wong being a Jamaica Scholar. On reflection, Trevor Munroe also became the Rhodes Scholar for 1966. But those were not good enough for me. I really wanted St George's to win the Manning Cup.

One thing losing did teach us was to accept defeat gracefully. I remember the six-nil thrashing at the hands of that great KC team of 1964 (?). We stood and cheered our losing team for about half-hour after the game, as any good Georgian should. It gave me some satisfaction when St George's returned the favour by a similar scoreline recently. However, to be honest, I think that six-nil beating was much worse.

Now comes the debate about transfers, and St George's has been singled out notably by some outstanding Georgians. My view on this is that students should be free to transfer (within certain limits) to the school they feel gives them the better chance of realising their potential, whether intellectually, athletically, creatively or otherwise.

Students before my time can idolise players like Ken East, Karl Largie, Aubrey Lowe, Frankie Lewis, Anthony Hill, Maurice Chance, Lascelles 'Muggy' Graham, among others, because they won Manning Cups. Sure, we had good players like Bruce Lyn, Russell Bell and Kesang 'Kippy' Chin, but we never won the cup.

My juvenile nine-year-old's view was that going to the school of my brothers was what I wanted, and fortunately, or unfortunately, my mother also thought it best (or was my tantrum enough to convince her?). It wasn't as if I, or my parents, had analysed my true potential, had srutinised all the high schools in Jamaica and had concluded that St George's was the one that best fitted my needs.

After all, Wolmer's was also regarded as one of the best. It had 21 Rhodes Scholars up to 1962 and has had eight since (versus once up to 1962 and only five times subsequently for St George's), according to Wikipedia.

Wolmer's Boys' School was referred to, locally, as the 'University of Cricket', having the most wins of the Sunlight Cup for Inter-Scholastic Under-19 cricket. Wolmer's Boys has also produced many cricketers who have represented Jamaica and the West Indies cricket teams.

Then there was Florizel Glasspole, the then minister of education, who was a graduate of Wolmer's and who encouraged my mother to send me there and not bother with the transfer.

The point is that what might appear to be 'right' for a student at first form might not be for fourth form or sixth form after his/her future direction starts to develop.

Moreover, it's not as if George's has always been the best in football. In fact, George's was winless for 24 years from 1959 to 1983. So it isn't that we were/are known for 'buying' students. Could it be that George's now has the best programme under the indomitable Neville Bell, with his top-notch management team and volunteers? Could it be that young footballers want to develop their skills while achieving an acceptable level of education and enhancing their future careers by coming to George's?

A posse of potholes?

I was driving on Easton Road off Old Hope Road recently, carrying my daughter to her extra-lesson class, when she exclaimed, "Daddy, watch out for that group of potholes!" That sounded a bit odd, so we started to play around with collective nouns. A school of potholes, a gaggle of potholes, a herd of potholes, a pride of potholes, a congregation, an army, a colony, a nest, a swarm, a drove, a flock, a raft, a shoal, a family, a fleet, a gang, a clutter, a covey, a rasp, a pack, a parcel of potholes, and so on. None of which sounded right. I decided on a posse of potholes. Email your suggestions, please.

P.S. I checked the Internet and found that Deacon Ronald Thwaites did win the Rhodes Scholarship for 1968.

Egerton Chang is a businessman. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and e_rider69@hotmail.com.